There are times that we look back on our walk God and what the Lord brought us through. And you know that God has been faithful. But we also know the frailty of the human part of us, but the faithfulness of the Lord’s dealings with us. God’s arm is with us to strengthen us.
Hebrews 7:25 He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them.
Hebrews 10: 12 But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool.
We see read here seems to be on the surface two different conflicting thoughts.
One that Jesus is interceding at the right hand of the Father, but because He is, He is able to save us to the uttermost.
The other is that the finished work of Jesus on the Cross is finished once and for all. He sat down on the right hand of the Father, nothing missing, a completed finished work and now is hence forth anticipated, with confident expectation, till every enemy is made his footstool.
We are his feet now upon the earth and seated in the heavenly places in Christ with delegated authority.
Now, which of these scriptures is the truth? Both are the truth.
In finishing what He did as the sacrifice for sin, it meant that the provision was perfect. The provision was complete. The provision lacked nothing more. In all time and eternity, nothing more must be done.
Hebrews 10:14 By one sacrifice he has perfected forever them that are being sanctified.
So why then the continuous intercession?
Because there’s a great deal of difference between God’s provision and the actual practice, our walking in that provision in appropriating that provision through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
What God has provided and what we walk in here on earth.
And this is why we take communion, which we are supposed to do every time we eat a meal. We are eating bread and drinking wine which are symbolic of eating his word and drinking his blood. It is a continual examination of ourselves and what Jesus provided for us.
This is just another step toward understanding the provision of the Lord, and then the practice of faith to appropriate it, reaching into that provision, seeing who we are in Christ and then making that a vital part of our lives so that it becomes real in our daily life.
We don’t want it to be some great potential that is never realized and experienced in our daily walk with the Lord.
We want a potential that is constantly flowing into our life through continually being filled with the Spirit which is an imperative- a command to that we can experience the abundant life Jesus came to give us and fulfilling God’s purposes and plans for us in those good works prepared for us to walk in before he created the heavens and the earth.
We want to be what His precious sacrifice means that we can be.
Faith then reaches in and lays hold of the provision and the promises of God.
Faith does not say, I will go back and add penance to God’s work. I will go and do some act to deserve credit and be worthy in the sight of God. This is legalism.
That would be taking away from what God did.
By grace are you saved through faith, not of works lest any man should boast.
Nothing that we can do, there is not a thing we can do to add to God’s salvation.
But all our efforts are to appropriate that complete, perfect salvation to the greatest of our divine ability.
We don’t want what we see in the scripture’s way up there, above but what we walk in way down far below our divine potential.
The constant effort is not to say, Oh, this great thing I see above and all these failures I see in my daily life.
But it is to say, this great thing I see of who I am in Christ, my identity in heaven, I’m reaching in by faith to appropriate it, to bring it as a reality into my life.
In one sense, this requires greater zeal and effort and diligence than anything you’ve ever experienced.
And in another sense, it’s the greatest rest that you’ve ever known for your soul because YHVH sees you perfect in Christ.
Because you’re at perfect rest understanding the provision and plan of God now.
But oh, how you’re moved to aggressively lay hold upon everything that He has for you. This makes the Christian life a beautiful balance.
If you preach legalism to a person, just the law, thou shalt not do this, and you must do this, you are going to be living with a sin-consciousness and not a righteousness- consciousness always focusing on what you are not, and what your relations with others are not, getting offended, let down and betrayed or rejected. So you go through the motions, yet there is an empty striving and a negative outlook.
But after you have dealt with the negative things in your life, there are still the things that that you have not done on the positive side.
So, in this process of sanctification, there’s a great yearning to appropriate His fullness, to be found in Him, even as it said, saved to the uttermost. Coming into everything that God has for your life.
Well, we are a person in process, we know He’s certainly changed us. And if we are involved with a prophetic community, we hear some good prophecies concerning our life and the ministry or church we are in.
That’s why I think the prophecies are good for us. We hear a prophecy, and it’s a good thing. At that moment, our faith is high. We see how much we have to look forward to.
We go back and we read those prophecies again, or we read the promises that have been quickened to us as we read the Scripture.
And when we do, we’re aware, I haven’t yet attained it. I’m not fully walking in it.
We’re not dissatisfied with condemnation, but we are like the old bear that stretches out and scratches the tree.
We want to see how high we can reach. And by the grace of God, we keep reaching a little bit higher.
Isn’t it a marvelous thing to think that the old flesh, , so condemned by God, so abhorrent in God’s sight that he doesn’t focus on it? Out of that, a new creation is emerging.
Out of the slime of everything that is corrupt and everything that God has cursed, reaching for that new nature comes in the life of God.
And we shall be like Him one day, for we shall see Him as He is.
God had one plan. That predestined plan of God was that whom He foreknew, them also He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
He intended that you were going to be just like Jesus. And you’re going to be like Him. You’re going to keep reaching into it, laying hold of it, confessing it, practicing the fruit of the Spirit drawing it in and releasing it into the atmosphere and people around you.
Each day you wake up, how far can you go? What can you do? You can see that God’s met every need that you have. He’s made a provision for your spiritual development and growth that’s tremendous.
I think it helps a little if you see you have a need. It helps a little if you can look realistically at your own self and say, I haven’t attained all that I need.
I’m very humble about this. I know I need more of the measure of the Spirit flowing in my life.
I know that there’s something more that I need in Christ.
And so you come by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. You appropriate a little more of his life.
And You know that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father interceding for you, The Holy Spirit is interceding in you praying with you through tongues, ministering to you, and you open up to his fullness, that you may be saved a little more to the uttermost.
Saved to the uttermost, that means everything brought under the Lordship of Jesus in your life, in his will.
Now, as we look to the Lord in prayer, do you feel as I do, in so many ways we have failed, but in so many, many more ways we’re reaching into God? Isn’t that true?
I think when you look back in your life what humans tend to do is they record, not all the good things that you did, but if you manifested the flesh that’s what they’ll point to. We’ll they did this or they didn’t do that. That’s the one thing that they’ll point to. What about you?
Can you a little more kindly evaluate yourself and say, in some things I have failed. But in many, many ways I have I have appropriated the things the Lord.
I look at myself not to justify myself, but I look at myself that I might see what is yet lacking, that I might see what the next level the Lord wants to bring me into. I’ll keep moving forward. I’ll keep reaching for the mark of the high calling, forgetting those things of my past. May today be the day you take that next step. It will help you reach into something more that’s yours in Christ.
Father, we are thankful for your help. We’re thankful for the gift of your precious Son to us.
Forgive us for whatever may be lacking in our heart. Strengthen that nature that is born of your Spirit and feed it and let it grow strong.
Meet us in what we need and we pray that we may lay off those things that would so easily beset us and reach in and possess those things that can be our strength, our blessing, our help this day.
We reach in for more of you. We don’t want to just to be good people, but to be people who are doing the will of God in the earth. We ask for it, we claim it, we believe for it right now in the precious name of our Lord.